as I entered one of the stalls. I immediately sat and put the backpack on my lap, then quietly slid open the zipper. My hands—having performed this exact sequence a hundred times in a row last night—pulled out my drone, then took out the security module. I screwed it on with a quiet click that I hoped wasn’t too audible.
A flip of a switch left the drone hanging in the air as I quickly did my business in the stall, so as to not sound suspicious. Then I squeezed around the side of the stall, leaving the drone hovering there. I held up one finger, then two, then three.
The drone vanished, activating its camouflage. Then I tapped my bracelet, checking to make sure the drone and I could communicate. It responded by sending me a message in DDF flight code that my bracelet tapped out on my skin.
All systems functioning.
The mission was a go. The Weights and Measures’s shielding prevented me from contacting M-Bot on the outside, but—as we had hoped—I could still communicate with someone inside, such as the drone.
I shouldered my pack and stepped out—then had an immediate regret. The destructor pistol! Scud, I’d meant to detach it and put it in my backpack in case I needed it.
Too late now. It was safely, and uselessly, strapped to the back of the drone.
Good luck, little guy, I thought, washing my hands. A part of me kept expecting the security drone to suddenly raise an alarm, but it remained silent. I followed my guide from the restroom, leaving my secret spy behind, ready to slip out and sneak to the engine room.
I reached the jump room and settled down with the others. Then I waited. And waited some more. Was it taking an unusually long amount of time for us to disengage from the docks and take off? Had I already been discovered?
Finally, the Weights and Measures undocked and began to move out into space.
“Pilots,” Winzik’s voice said over the comm, making me jump practically to the ceiling. “I wanted to let you know that today’s training is particularly important. My, my! We bear a number of important officials from the Superiority government, who have come to watch your progress. As a favor to me, I’d like you to fly your best and impress them.”
Today? Of all days, today was the day that extra observers came on the ship to watch? I almost contacted my drone and told it to abort. But no. I was committed.
I waited in silence as we got a safe distance from Starsight, and then a scream sounded in my mind and we entered the nowhere.
I didn’t have much opportunity to worry about the drone and its mission during training that day.
I shot through space, pursued by a swarm of self-propelled imitation boulders. Brade flew close at my wing, and together we tried to dart toward the delver maze—but the embers were ready for that. Another group of them broke off the outside of the maze and streamed toward us.
“Veer pattern,” I said. “Cutting right.” I spun my starfighter, boosting. That shot me to the side, though my momentum still carried me forward as well.
My proximity sensor showed that Brade—instead of following my orders—barreled toward the new set of embers. I growled, hitting the private line. “Brade, follow orders!”
“I can take these embers,” she said.
“No doubt that you can. But can you follow orders?”
She continued toward the embers. Then, just before engaging them, she veered off and broke away, boosting toward me. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“All right,” I said. “Veer pattern, cutting right.”
I turned us around in a wide sweep, away from the embers. Brade followed, and together we wove around as I had ordered. “All right,” I said, coming in at a better angle. “Let loose.”
“Really?” she asked.
“I’ll follow your lead.”
I sensed an eagerness to her as she boosted ahead of me. The embers were predictable in how they would try to smash into us, so the way we had cut around had bunched them all up in front of us. Brade had little trouble blasting a group of them away.
I, in turn, shot the one that drew too close to her. We both took some debris on our shields, but emerged mostly unscathed as we dove between the two advancing packs of embers.
These, in their eagerness to hit us, began crashing into one another. We emerged as a good dozen of the enemy crashed together in